Organized Violence

Official stories say that violence in Latin America is a product of criminal activity and the drug trade. Organized Violence exposes how that narrative serves corporate and state interests and de-politicizes events that have more to do with logistics infrastructure, social control, and the extractive industries than with cocaine. Global capital and violence reinforce conditions that fortify the current economic order, and whether it be the military, police, or death squads that pull the trigger, economic expansion benefits from repressive activities carried out under the guise of fighting crime.

“This book situates organized criminal violence in Latin America within the region’s broader political and economic dynamics. The result is a provocative contribution to the emerging study of the political economy of criminal violence and new insights into the role that coercive criminal actors play in extractive industries.” —Eduardo Moncada, author of Cities, Business, and the Politics of Urban Violence in Latin America

“This volume represents a major contribution to the scholarship on the relationship between capitalism and violence, providing crucial new empirical and theoretical perspectives. It is also a pressing topic not just for scholarly research, but for the pursuit of social justice and human rights in the hemisphere—as such, it will make an important contribution beyond the academy, as well.” —Christy Thornton, Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins University

Contributors: Patricia Alvarado Portillo, Michelle Arroyo Fonseca, Paula Balduino de Melo, Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, Ana Del Conde, Arturo Ezquerro-Cañete, Mary Finley-Brook, Antonio Fuentes Díaz, Simon Granovsky-Larsen, Carlos Daniel Gutiérrez-Mannix, Elva F. Orozco Mendoza, Rosalvina Otálora Cortés, Dawn Paley, Heriberto Paredes Coronel, Jorge Rebolledo Flores, Tyler Shipley, Luis Solano